The Missing- Volume II- Lies (4 page)

The Past

Four Months Ago

I
sat in front of my window seething.

I was angry. So angry.

Bradley hadn’t been to my window in almost a week.

I couldn’t believe he’d leave me alone on Thursday. He knew what it would do to me to be by myself.

He was punishing me.

Or himself.

I saw him on campus, but he never approached. I wouldn’t go after him. I was infuriated. I was hurt.

I didn’t appreciate him withholding his presence to teach me some sort of deranged lesson.

I felt his eyes on me as I walked with Maren. I tried to ignore him. I tried not to care. But I didn’t like him avoiding me.

It was unusual. He had never been able to stay away from me before.

He had always been there, whether I wanted him to be or not.

At first I had hated his faithful, mute witness to the horrible things in my life. But eventually he became my steady pulse. My beating constant.

He coated my heart in his acrimonious rage, and I had come to depend on it.

I knew why he was staying away.

Because of
her.

My Maren.

I resented his purposeful evasion. He used it like a weapon to injure me.

And it worked.

I knew I should speak to him, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what lies to feed him. What truth would make him happy. What could I possibly say to lessen his unrealistic sense of betrayal? Bradley’s world was painted in dark colors and bitter suspicion. His perceptions were shaped by his dreadful experiences, and there was no changing that.

I couldn’t run after him. I wouldn’t. Though it wasn’t pride that kept me still. That was something I had never had much of to begin with.

No. It was disappointment that made me silent. That kept me away.

He hadn’t come to me when I needed him to. Behind a locked door I depended on him. In the hours of sleep we had always been able to keep the other safe.

But he hadn’t come.

And forgiving him for that would be hard. No matter the reason.

I sat in my room staring out towards his house, wondering if he was there. He lacked understanding when I told him that I couldn’t leave my childhood home. He became angry and impassioned despite the fact that he too still lived deep within his own hell.

The neighborhood had no idea of the horrors that lurked just beyond the pretty red door.

The home was perfect in that suburbia, apple pie kind of way, with bright blue shutters and pristine white siding. His mother had hung an American flag from the front porch and planted flowers of every color in the pots by the door. The windows were clean and the grass was mowed.

I
knew the darkness that lived there. I had never bothered to ask him why he continued to live there. Why he hadn’t run away as soon as he was able to.

Like me, he was a prisoner.

He needed me to make my escape before he was able to make his.

“Where are you?” I whispered, pressing my hand against the glass.

My door swung open, but I didn’t startle. I was used to her sudden violations.

“You can come down for dinner. Rosie’s here. Be polite,” Mother stated, her words clipped and cold.

My eyes lingered on the Somers’ house, guilt now mixing with the anger I felt towards my best friend. If he wasn’t coming to see me, was he forced to stay
there?

The thought of what that meant for Bradley made my blood run cold, and I hated myself for thinking only of my happiness. Was Maren worth leaving Bradley to his own demons?

“Did you hear me?” Mother didn’t shout. She didn’t have to.

I finally looked away from Bradley’s house and turned towards my mother. She was dressed to the nines in a long white skirt that swept the floor and a soft blue blouse with pearl buttons. Her hair, the same color as mine, was swept upwards in a pile of curls on top of her head. She looked lovely. I opened my mouth to tell her so, hoping to please her, but I stopped myself before speaking.

There was no point. She didn’t care what I thought about anything. I had to learn to stop wasting energy trying to elicit affection from a woman who would never give it.

It was a painful lesson that had to be learned. No matter how much I tried to cling to the hope that one day she’d love me, she never would.

“How can I love something that makes me so miserable?”

“I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll come down in a minute,” I said quietly, ducking my head so that I wouldn’t have to look at her. So that she wouldn’t have to look at me.

“Push your hair out of your face,” she commanded.

I did as I was told. I waited for her to leave, but she didn’t.

I glanced up after a few awkward minutes to find her staring at me, a familiar far away expression on her face. My breath caught in my throat.

Her face softened for just the briefest of moments. Her lips parted and I kept as silent as possible.

“Life was supposed to be so different.” She smiled and my heart hurt. Sometimes she could look almost . . .
soft
. Those were times when I saw a different mother. A mother who could love her ugly, unwanted child.

“Such dreams. So many of them that they filled every corner of this house,” she continued and as usual, I didn’t understand. But I couldn’t help but smile at the tender note in her voice. I loved her like this.

Then her face froze over and her eyes became hard.

“You’re hideous. My god, you’re absolutely despicable. That face haunts my nightmares. It is the source of every awful thing in my life!” Her hands were trembling as she pointed a shaking finger in my direction.

“I tried to fix you! But it didn’t work. Not surgery! Not God! Nothing will take it away!” Her voice rose and rose, and I wished I could cover my ears to block out her words but I couldn’t. She’d never let me. She’d force me to stomach her ire until she was bloated on it.

Mother calmed slightly, now looking pensive. Her thoughtful expression chilled me.

“Maybe it is all my fault. After all I should have known better. God hates liars and sinners. I was both. And now I’m forced to suffer the consequences.” Mother’s hands became fists and she was looking at me now, not at long ago memories. “I wish I had done as he had asked and gotten rid of you. Things would have been so different.”

I had been conditioned to stay quiet while Mother expelled her venom. I looked back towards Bradley’s house and something inside me snapped. Not a total break, but the smallest of fractures.

“What am I a consequence of, Mother? What did you do?” I took a step towards her. Something in my face must have alarmed her. Her eyes widened and she stiffened.

“Stop blaming me for things I can’t control! This grief is because of
you!”
I shouted. I wanted to cover my mouth, horrified by my outburst. Already preparing myself for her retaliation.

“Don’t speak to me that way!” Mother gasped.

I dug my nails into my palms, needing the pain to ground me. “Why can’t you love me?” I beseeched, wanting to get her attention. Needing her to tell me
why.

Mother parted her lips just slightly and I thought, perhaps, she was prepared to finally give me an answer. She looked at me long and hard. I couldn’t read her expression, but there was a momentary softening that made my stomach flip over. I had never seen her look at me in that way before. Like perhaps she was finally
seeing
me.

We stood, frozen, staring at one another. A thousand spoken and unspoken words floating in the air between us. There was so much hurt, bitterness, sorrow that I knew, without a doubt; we would never have any sort of normal relationship.

But if she could just explain to me why she had spent my entire life wishing me dead, then maybe I could find some sort of peace in this reality I endured with her.

I should have known better than to expect anything. Particularly from Mother.

She turned on her heel and walked out of my room, speaking over her shoulder. “Rosie’s hungry. Don’t make us wait on you.” A threat was implied. I had no intentions of ever making her wait.

When my mother was gone, I sat down on my bed and covered my horrible, horrible face with my hands. I couldn’t believe that I had actually spoken to her that way.

Where had it come from?

I grinned behind my palms. It had felt good. But that little sense of victory didn’t last long.

When I finally came downstairs, I wasn’t surprised to find Mother and Rosie already sitting at the dining room table, their plates full of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. There was even a Key Lime pie and homemade rolls. All of Rosie’s favorites. Mine too but that didn’t matter. This food was for the lovely woman sitting beside my mother. Eating. Talking. Laughing. Loving and enjoying each other.

I thought of how my mother had gazed at me upstairs. The soft, thoughtful way she had regarded me. The disgust had been gone. The hatred was non-existent.

For just a moment.

Unconsciously I ran my finger over the scars on my face. For a few seconds I didn’t feel quite so . . .
appalling.
It would be a new memory that I tucked away. I would pull it out in the dark hours to keep me company.

I made some sort of noise. A cough. An audible swallow. Mother looked towards me and I saw only irritation.

Repugnance.

Shame.

Rosie smiled dutifully. Insincerely. I didn’t smile back. I sat down in my chair on the other side of the table. Far away from both of them.

My eyes blurred and for a moment I couldn’t see. I felt an intense pain in my temple and I rubbed the spot.

“It’s time for dinner, Nora. Don’t make me wait on you.” Mother slammed the door shut.

Empty chairs. Mother sat at the head of the table. Only the two of us . . .

The pain receded and my vision cleared. I remained quiet, careful not to make a noise so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself.

Mother didn’t acknowledge me, but Rosie always saw me. I hated that she noticed everything. She smirked as I loaded up my plate with chicken and potatoes. I was hungry, having forgotten to eat lunch as I waited for Maren to get out of class.

I hadn’t eaten breakfast either. My mother hadn’t given me a chance to have my normal cereal before leaving for school. I was accustomed to hunger. I knew the feeling well from being locked away with no thought of providing me sustenance. It was important to load up when I was given the opportunity.

I started to reach across the table for the basket of rolls when Rosie clicked her tongue.

Don’t look at her! Don’t do it!

My hand stilled and I glanced at the pretty, pretty woman watching me with vicious glee.

“You’ll gain weight if you continue to eat like that, Nora,” my former foster sister goaded. I thought about throwing the mashed potatoes in her face.

“Put the food back, Nora. Rosie’s right, the last thing you need is to get fat. You have enough problems with your appearance as it is. Eat the asparagus and some of the broccoli,” Mother instructed sternly. I hesitated. I didn’t want to listen. I felt obstinate with Rosie’s hateful eyes and Mother’s constant disapproval wrapped around me like a blanket.

“Put the food back, Nora. You’re ugly enough. Don’t get fat on top of it.” Mother watched me like a hawk as I obeyed.

Only the two of us.

Always just the two of us.

“Now!” Mother barked, and I put the chicken on the plate and the mashed potatoes back in the bowl. I placed my now mostly empty plate in front of me and shoved a limp piece of asparagus into my mouth. It tasted like bitterness and loathing.

“This is the best chicken I’ve ever had, Leslie.” Rosie cut up her food and ate it with gusto, enjoying every bite.

I hoped she choked on it.

Mother beamed and reached across the table to put her hand on top of Rosie’s. I sank down lower into my chair.

“After dinner you can take your things up to your room,” Mother told her, looking happier than I had seen her in a long time.

“That would be great, Leslie,” Rosie enthused, her eyes flickering toward me. It took me a few minutes to realize what Mother had said.

“Take her things to what room?” I asked.

Mother ignored me. Pretending that I didn’t exist. It’s what she did best.

But Rosie didn’t ignore me.

I wished she would.

“Didn’t Leslie tell you? I’m staying here for a while.” She popped another piece of the delicious looking chicken into her mouth, chewing slowly. The juice from the well-cooked meat glistened on her lips. The dimples in her cheeks showing themselves as she tried not to grin.

“What?” I felt ill.

Mother cut her food into small, precise pieces, carrying on as though I hadn’t asked anything.

“I’m currently in between places to live. Leslie kindly offered me my old room,” Rosie answered, watching me closely, eyes narrowed.